Adventures in Live Performance Pt. 1: Hire the Right Sound Guy

Written on 13 June 2011 by John

This past weekend my band had a private party gig at a local club. The gig was for a full 4 hour night , 3 sets, and paid well, so we went ahead and took the date. However, we were expected to provide sound and lights, which we don’t have. After calling around and getting some prices, we settled on a guy that had sufficient channels to accomodate our 6 piece band with 3 vocalists and 3 guitar players. None of us had worked with this guy before. Price: $450 for a full night of sound and lights. We’re not crazy about this, but it seems like it’ll be OK.

At the gig, the guy shows up with a bunch of brand new Yamaha speakers and two or three racks full of effects processors, along with a Tascam digital board and a bunch of Mackie power amps. The first warning sign hits when we soundcheck the guitars. There’s some kind of a lag between hitting the string and the sound in the mains. The singers are noticing some kind of gate or compression on all the vocal mics, which takes away all of their dynamics since anything soft gets gated off. And, after specifying that the only things in the front wedges should be vocals, guitars keep popping up in the monitors, which absolutely drives the singers nuts. We ask him to please remove the guitars from the monitors and please take whatever he’s got on the channels that’s gating/compressing everything off. Run through a song, it’s OK (not great, but passable), so we head off to get ready for the show.

30 minutes later, we hit the stage and it’s an absolute NIGHTMARE. We’re getting swamped out by some kind of feedback around 100Hz or so, which is louder than anything else onstage. The guitar’s back in the monitors again.  The acoustic guitar is the loudest thing in the monitors (after the howling feedback) at about 110dB, taking everybody’s face off and causing even more sonic mayhem. We finish the first song and our lead singer asks the sound guy to PLEASE FIX THE MIX, WE CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING. After the second song, we take a pause and try to get the problems sorted, to no avail. However, by the end of the 1st set, things are ALMOST tolerable, so we break and get ready for the next set.

At the start of the 2nd set, we hit the stage after about 30 minutes and everything is all screwed up again, maybe worse than the 1st set because now the low rumbling is about to bring the entire ceiling down and is vibrating the stage so much that we’re wondering if we’re going to get thrown into the celing.  Once again, we try to plow on through while they dial in the PA, to no avail.

The 3rd set was even worse, if you can imagine that. Fortunately the crowd was pretty drunk by then so it didn’t matter much.

Net result: we’re out $450, our singer’s voice is gone, we delivered a marginal show that was not up to our standards, and the whole band is pissed off and very unhappy. Unfortunately we had to pay the guy up front, which means we paid this guy $450 to try to learn how to use his board on the job. We did get paid and the client seemed happy, but none of us feel particularly good about it.

Has this happened to you?

Like it or not, we’re all dependant on live sound engineers to run the PA and in some cases, provide the PA. In fact, more often than not, HAVING a PA is all they need to call themselves a sound engineer and charge bands $450 for the honor of working with them. In this case, we got ripped off. In fact, most times that we’ve had to provide a PA for a show, we’ve gotten ripped off. If this had been a typical club date for us, that $450 was our take home for the night, so we would’ve made nothing. Fortunately this wasn’t the case and we did come out ahead on the deal, but that’s not the norm.

Bands have to work pretty hard to prove themselves. We pay our dues slogging it out in little bars for years trying to work our way up to the next level. Yet all it takes to make decent money as a sound engineer is a credit card with a decent sized limit and a vehicle to haul it around in? What’s wrong with this picture?

I have a lot of money and time tied up in gear to get the sound I hear in my head out to the world, but all it takes is one idiot behind the desk to ruin it. It’s even worse for the singers, as they bear the brunt of not being able to hear themselves in the monitors and trying to get up over the never-ending low rumbling feedback. We didn’t put on our best show, and we probably didn’t sound too great. The people who were there don’t know WHY we didn’t sound good, they just know we didn’t sound good. This hurts us. It probably doesn’t hurt the sound company, although I certainly intend to make sure that nobody I know ever hires this guy.

Some possible takeaways from this:

  1. If you’re hiring a new sound company, always see if you can get a reference or even better, go to a gig where they’re working so you can check out the sound. Make sure it’s as similar a band to yours as you can make it.
  2. Ask around. See if anyone in your network has any recommendations. Have they worked with this company before? How was their experience?
  3. The gear list is only part of the story. Just because somebody has a lot of $ tied up in expensive processing gear, power amps, and speakers doesn’t mean he knows how to use them or mix. Honestly, we would’ve been better off with a couple of sticks out front with a sub, 2 monitors, and nothing but vocals in the PA. Instead we got this behemoth PA that nobody knew how to use.
  4. Even if you own your own PA, you STILL need somebody to run it. At least with this option you can equip the PA with stuff that you are comfortable with and get used to how it sounds.

Feel free to leave your soundman from hell stories in the comments section.

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Gary Moore: 4 April 1952 – 6 February 2011

Written on 10 February 2011 by John

The world of hard rock and blues guitar lost one of its greatest players last Sunday, with the death of Gary Moore. Gary was and remains one of my biggest influences and guitar heroes since I first heard him in 1983 on the song “End of the World” (from the Corridors of Power album.) Just about every guitarist that grew up in the 1980’s, from rankest amateur to pro virtuoso, knows who Gary Moore is and many cite him as an influence. This includes guys like Joe Bonamassa, Vivian Campbell, John Sykes, Kirk Hammet, Adrian Smith, Zakk Wylde, John Norum, and Randy Rhodes – not a bad legacy! Rumor has it that Gary was Ozzy’s first pick to replace Randy Rhodes after he died, and turned him down to focus on his solo career. Yet, to the vast majority of music fans, Gary Moore is an unknown.

Gaey Moore 1985

Gary and Neil Carter tearing it up on the Wild Frontier Tour, 1985

So why should you care about Gary Moore?

Let’s start with his guitar playing:

Gary started out in the late 60’s in Ireland, being heavily influenced by British blues players like Clapton and Peter Green, as well as Albert King and Hendrix. Green took the young Moore under his wing and Gary’s style owes a huge debt to Greeny, from the way he phrases, his vibrato, his tone, and even his choice of instruments. Early in his career, Gary crossed paths with Phil Lynott, and this began his on again/off again association with Thin Lizzy, for which he is best known. However, he only made one album with Lizzy – 1978’s Black Rose. Most of the rest of his recorded output was under his own name, starting with Grinding Stone in 1973, all the way through to Bad For You Baby in 2008. As a player, Gary is the bridge between the feel and soul of the blues rock he grew up on, and the guitar pyrotechnics of the late-70’s and 80’s shredders like Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhodes, and Yngwie Malmsteen. Gary had RIDICULOUS chops – especially for the late 70’s (remember, VH 1 came out in early 1978) – yet, his chops were always subservient to his sense of melody and the song. His phrasing was perfect, his solos always had a point, and even though he might be tearing your face off with 32nd note runs, there was a rawness to his playing, like a car careening down a dark mountain road with the lights off, barely under control. Gary never made it sound easy; he made it sound REAL. Unlike a lot of his followers in the 80’s, Gary never lost emotion in his playing. He could make you feel what he was feeling, just like the great blues players that influenced him, while shredding his balls off. This is not something you can learn from a book. Gary never wasted a note, and he could play slow melodic lines just as well as he blazed.

In the 90’s, Gary went back to his roots with the album Still Got the Blues. The title track blipped on the charts in the US for about 5 seconds, and then Gary went back underground. However, in Europe, he remained in the forefront of blues rock guitar for the next 2 decades. Initially, his style changed very little from his hard rock days – he was still playing the same licks, just over different changes, and he still kept up a good balance between ballads and more upbeat numbers. After the 1995 album Blues For Greeny (which was a tribute to the guy that got him started, Peter Green), it seemed like he lost a step or two, and his music got more and more repetitive and less original. At some point, he seemed to lose sight of what made him unique. I still bought his recordings religiously, but found myself enjoying them less and less. Not that there aren’t some gems to be found from this period – The Power of the Blues has some excellent stuff on it, for example. But for the casual fan, after Blues Alive or Blues For Greeny, you really don’t need anything else.

So why wasn’t Gary better known in the States? Simple: he was too old, not pretty enough to be marketed to the hair metal fans in America in the 80’s, and he never really toured over here. It just wasn’t profitable for him to slog it out in the US post Nevermind. He was better off staying in Europe, where he was better known. I was lucky enough to see him open for Y&T and Ace Frehley in 1988 at the Bronco Bowl in Dallas, which was about a 3000 seat hall, and absolutely mop the floor with both of ‘em. To this day this is one of the top two or three shows I’ve seen.

Where do you start with Gary Moore? Here are some tracks that I feel are essential listening to get an idea of what Gary was about. If you’re a guitar player, you should own these:

With Thin Lizzy/Phil Lynott:

“Rock” era:

“Blues” era:

Albums:
If you want to get a good overview of Gary’s work, start with the live albums We Want Moore, and Blues Alive.  Gary was always at his best live, and these give you a good “greatest hits” 10,000 foot view.  From there, you can dive deeper into the catalog depending on which Gary you prefer.

Besides these two, check out Black Rose, Victims of the Future, and Blues For Greeny.

Gary died of an apparent heart attack in his sleep while on vacation in Spain with his girlfriend.

RIP Gary.

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Musicians Guide to Setting and Achieving Goals in 2011

Written on 6 January 2011 by John

Great post by Ariel Hyatt!

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Don’t Suffer for Your Art

Written on 28 December 2010 by John

Great post from CD Baby:

http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2010/12/dont-suffer-for-your-art-12-rules-to-becoming-more-creative/

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Commitment

Written on 26 November 2010 by John

Internet forums are full of armchair quarterbacks extolling the virtues of their favorite guitarists and berating the opposition. Usually these boil down to “my guy can play faster” or “my guy has awesome bent note vibrato” or some other technique related issue. But I think these guys totally miss the point. For me, it boils down to commitment. Is this guy real? Is he committed to what he’s saying/playing? Is he truly putting his heart and soul into the guitar, or he just typing real fast?

Some food for thought. Think about this the next time you’re listening to something you’ve recorded. Is it real? Are you committed? Or are you just moving your fingers real fast trying to impress the girl in the back by the bar?

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Revisiting an old song: remixing “Inside Out”

Written on 26 November 2010 by John

Here’s an interesting topic for discussion: what do you do when you have an old song that you think is good, but you haven’t ever been able to get a mix you like of it? Add a couple of other factors:

  1. The vocal has pitch issues and really needs to be recut.
  2. You only have two takes of the vocal to work with, so getting a clean comp that corrects all of the issues is out of the question.
  3. The person who sang the tracks originally is unavailable to recut the tracks.
  4. The arrangement is not working.
  5. Some of the instrument sounds and parts are not working.

A little history on the tune: this song was originally written and recorded by myself and Paula Smith, and was originally a very simple, poorly recorded acoustic guitar, drum loop, and vocal arrangement. We wrote the original and demoed it in maybe 1997? It’s old. I don’t even have that version anymore. In 2003, I rerecorded it into Pro Tools LE version 6 something and I tried to add more instruments and flesh the arrangement out more. Paula threw down a scratch vocal with the intention of cutting it again later. I took a few cuts at adding drums, electric guitars, bass, etc. to it, and never got a satisfactory result, so I shelved it, with the intention of coming back at some point and cleaning it up.

Unfortunately Paula was killed in a car accident in 2008. At that point I really didn’t want anything to do with touching this or any other song, so it lay dormant. Then, my hard drive crashed, and I lost all the files.

Earlier this year, I was poking around on one of my old PCs and found an archived version of the song. So I pulled it over to my Mac and started revisiting it.

On listening to what was there, I realized that it needed to be kept pretty open – instead of stacking a bunch of guitars on it, I needed to keep it fairly close to the original version. So I scrapped all the guitars and kept just an acoustic and a clean electric part, and a bass. I went with more keyboards instead of guitars. My friend Jeff McMullen had done some key parts for me sometime in the past before the crash, and fortunately these were all still there, so they became more important to the song in terms of adding the necessary build up and dynamics.

One of the biggest sore spots was the drums. I had never been able to get a drum sound that I felt happy with, and the performance that was there was no good. So I had gone with a loop, which didn’t seem to really suit the song that well. I recently acquired the Steven Slate drums and decided to try them out on this track. Perfect sound! So I just played some simple stuff in with a keyboard, and that was it. Done! After 7 years of searching for a drum sound for this song, I almost can’t believe how simple it was once I had the right sound. Lesson here is, it really helps to have options available when you’re putting an arrangement together. I had been using an Alesis DM-5 as well as BFD 2; neither got it done. Steven Slate was perfect right out of the box. Go figure. So I think going forward I’ll be spending more money on plug ins for the studio.

Once I had the arrangement issues more or less under control, I turned my attention to fixing the vocal. More on this in a future post.

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What’s the Deal?

Written on 11 September 2010 by John

A lot of changes have happened in my world in the last 6 months.

I’ll start with the musical ones – I am no longer a member of Anthem. Although I enjoyed playing with David, Jason, and Neil very much, I felt like I had done everything I could with the band and I just wasn’t into it anymore. It was fun to push myself and see how far I could go, and I know I improved a lot as a player working on such difficult material for 6 years with the band, but it was just time to move on. Jason and David are looking for a new guitarist and bass player and will carry on with the band once they have found the right guys. I wish them the best of luck and future success with the band.

I have joined up with Bebe LeStrange as their second guitarist, backing up the fabulous Nona Ellison (fake Ann) and Leigh Anne Bramlett (fake Nancy) – two of the nicest divas you’ll ever meet. This is a different challenge, but in a weird way it feels very familiar as well, like coming home in a way. My first serious band in Dallas, Lochinvar, was fronted by Paula Blade, whose biggest influence as a singer was Ann Wilson. Paula sounded quite a bit like Ann, although her voice was a lot lower in pitch. I guess I’m just used to that sound due to working with Paula for so many years. Also, it seems to me like most of the female rock singers in town are better than their male counterparts – maybe because they have to try so much harder to be accepted? I dunno. But Paula was awesome and Nona and Leigh Anne are as well. It’s a privilege to work with such talented people.

So this blog was originally created as a place to post and discuss writing and recording music at home. Why then, has that not happened? Well, basically, I just haven’t had the inspiration to write anything. In April, the company that I work for was part of a merger, and I was moved into a new group, with new managers and job responsibilities. We are probably going to get hit with another layoff before the end of March next year, and I am hoping to avoid the ax and make this work. The stress is almost unbearable at times, and after I get home for the day I’m done – I’ve got nothing left. This can be really hard on your productivity in the studio. I know, it’s an excuse, and if I really wanted to do it, I would. Tell that to my drooping eyelids and aching back. ;-)

I hope you all have a good week!

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YouTube – Bebe Le Strange-A Tribute to Heart “Crazy On You”@House Of Blues-Dallas,Tx. 08/21/10

Written on 29 August 2010 by John

YouTube – Bebe Le Strange-A Tribute to Heart “Crazy On You”@House Of Blues-Dallas,Tx. 08/21/10.

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5 Reasons Why Your Mix Is Crap, Michael Molenda

Written on 12 May 2010 by John

5 Reasons Why Your Mix Is Crap, Michael Molenda

Posted using ShareThis

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Rich Knuckalls, Oct 2, 1956 – April 20, 2010

Written on 30 April 2010 by John

Obituary.

I “met” Rich 10 years ago in the old Harmony Central Guitar Forum. Rich was a character – his stories of the road, playing clubs in the late 70′s and 80′s, and his sense of humor were unmatched. Rich was also one hell of a guitar player and just a real nice guy. He’s probably best known for his “Friday stories”, where he would post about some crazy thing that happened on the road. NOBODY could weave a tale like Rich. I had a hard time telling how much of this stuff actually happened, and how much was made up. Given how his life seemed to go, I’d say that at least 90% was true, and the other 10% wasn’t embellished a whole lot.

Like a lot of creative people, Rich seemed to be a magnet for chaos and his life was in constant turmoil. He referred to this as “being hit by anvils”, as in Wile E. Coyote in the old road runner cartoons.

Rich dropped out of sight a few years ago and I hadn’t exchanged emails or spoken to him in a few years. He will be missed – not only by his immediate family and friends, but also by the online community that he helped build.

STAUNTON — Richard Earl Knuckalls, 53, of Staunton, passed away April 20, 2010. He was born Oct. 2, 1956, to parents, Laura Harris and Garland E. Knuckalls, who preceded him in death.

Richard graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in 1975. He was a gifted artist and talented musician. He was the founding member of the band, First Offense.

He is survived by a son, Brittain Knuckalls; a grandson, Mason; Mason’s mother, Yvonne Vogel; two sisters, Cindie Harris Toman and Sandy Knuckalls; and many other relatives.

A memorial service will be conducted at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 25, 2010, at First Baptist Church in Staunton.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions be made to the Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired Endowment Fund, ATTN: Eva Ampey, 397 Azalea Ave., Richmond, VA 23227.

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